A Taste of Muggle Euphoria
by acci0dramione
Summary: DMHR/FLUFF/EWE/ONE-SHOT/PREGNANT!HERMIONE/ Draco agrees to accompany Hermione to a Muggle doctors appointment, which proves to be just as rewarding as Hermione had assured him it'd be. *Cover image used from captbexx on deviantart*
'Draco,' Hermione said sympathetically, suddenly stopping her avid pace around the bedroom in search for her keys, 'I know you'd rather do anything in the world than accompany me to this Healers — Er, doctors — appointment, what with all the Muggles and unfamiliar objects you'll have to endure but I assure you, I wouldn't make you come unless I felt it absolutely necessary and believe me, darling, when I tell you this. . . I do. It is absolutely necessary you come.'

Looking up at his pleading wife, he scanned her face as if searching for a lie. When he could not find such, he let out a sigh of defeat and nodded his head.

'Alright,' he groaned, lifting himself. The four poster bed he had previously been sitting on creaked as the weight decreased. With the flick of his wand, he put out of the fire that was warming the bedroom. 'But I'm telling you right now, Hermione, if one of those Muggles even attempts to slice me, I'll — !'

'Trust me,' she laughed, interrupting his very dramatic imitation of a sliced throat. 'They won't.'

After watching her for so long, distracted by their low-tempered argument, Draco finally decided it was time he assist his wife in her search for her keys.

'Have you thought to use magic to find them?' he chuckled. ' _Accio keys_!'

However, no keys flew into his readily open hands. Hermione snorted.

'I've put an enchantment on them, so no one can simple _Accio_ my keys and raid our house. That Mundungus character taught me a valuable lesson, I suppose,' said Hermione with disregard. Draco simply stared at her, as if in disbelief.

'Can't you just lift the enchantments until we've got the keys, then put them back on?'

'Oh,' she flushed. 'Yes — Yes, I suppose I could do that, couldn't I?' Half heartedly she chuckled, then unclear incantations flowed from her mouth. When she'd finished, she looked at Draco, smiled weakly as if to say "Oops!"

' _Accio keys_!' he pronounced, and her keys flew out from behind their television set — which Draco had been indignant to accept into his childhood home, Malfoy Manor — and swiftly landed in his hand. 'Off we go, then.'

Draco, although very skilled with Apparation himself, still held on to Hermione's arm as they Apparated to the Muggle hospital. Having no prior knowledge of where it was until they landed in front of the large concrete building, it was risky that he should Apparate himself. Draco took a moment to stare at the length of it — he could have sworn the upper-most levels were splitting in between a cloud.

Hermione nudged him, a smile playing on her face, then walked to the entrance of the hospital.

'This hospital is not unlike St. Mungo's,' Hermione whispered to him as they passed. 'However, there are obvious differences — different wards for example,' she jerked her head slightly towards a sign on the wall which listed and explained every ward and floor in the building, however Draco chose not to waste his time. 'As well as slightly more of a higher security. Well, Muggle security.'

She approached the front desk with a grand smile on her face. The women behind the desk, surprisingly to Draco, smiled just a widely back. 'Welcome to St. Anne's! Do you have an appointment here today?'

'Yes, I do,' Hermione replied, pulling out a paper from her jean pocket, 'I'm here to see Dr. Morton, please.'

The woman typed unnervingly fast, Draco remarked, then handed the sheet of paper back to Hermione. 'Just have a seat over there, dear. He's just finishing up with another woman,' her face suddenly went very sorrowful, 'Terrible circumstance, she's in. Just lost her third baby — miscarriages, you see. Terrible. . . Just terrible. . .'

Draco saw something in Hermione's face change. She nodded gloomily to the secretary, grabbed Draco's arm rather firmly, and lead him to the sitting area.

'Are you alright, Hermione?' he said softly, sitting next to her in a ripped, cushioned chair.

She nodded.

'You don't look okay. . .' he wracked his brain for something that ought to have happened. Had he offended her? _No_ , he thought quickly, _he hasn't done anything_. . . Suddenly, he understood. 'Have you had a late instance of morning sickness?'

She shook her head. "No, sweetheart. Not that. I'm not feeling sick. Not that kind of sick, anyway.'

He looked at her then, noticing she was crying. 'Hermione?' he placed his hand upon hers, which was buried in her lap. 'Hermione, please talk to me.'

'Just what the lady said, Draco,' she chuckled crestfallen. 'Gave me a bit of a fright, that's all.'

'What did she say?' he asked, confused as he'd ever been. He didn't understand a word of what the woman was saying. Hardly paid attention at all until he saw Hermione's mood change.

'You see, when a Muggle carries a baby, there are all sorts of risks that can happen. Tragedies, really. If you do something wrong — although even in some cases there aren't proper reasons for it at all, it just seems to sort of. . . happen — your baby can. . . well. . . your baby can die.'

Draco looked down to her stomach. A medium-sized bump was protruding there, having already been 5 months since its conception. It had never occurred to him that the baby living inside her could be in danger. How could it be, when it was safely covered by flesh and bone, and what Hermione described to him once as "safety-water"? He looked back up at Hermione's face. She was wiping the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her other hand.

'It was silly of me to panic, honestly,' she smiled lightly. 'I've done everything right. I've read every pregnancy book there is. This is probably the healthiest, safest baby that's ever been conceived.'

Draco laughed, but he was still concerned as to what could possibly happen to the baby inside her. 'What's a miscarriage, Hermione?'

'It's a Muggle term to describe the act of a baby dying inside of the mother,' she said. 'There's usually a lot of blood accompanied by its sudden death. If it's not treated properly, it can even lead to the death of the woman who had once carried the baby.'

Draco sat for a moment, contemplating. 'And the woman at the front desk. . . She'd said the woman had three?'

Hermione frowned. 'Yes. Yes, three miscarriages, Draco.'

'Merlin. . .'

Hermione caught his expression change from curious to horror-struck. She grabbed his hand a little tighter and said, 'No, no, no! You mustn't panic, Draco. Our baby's fine. Actually, that's exactly what we've come here to confirm. We're checking on our baby.'

Draco, at the sound of her words, eased up a great deal. He'd been wondering why Hermione's appointments had always brought her back in a good mood. He could not imagine how it must feel to check on your baby, to verify its good-health. It must have been a very elating experience.

Just as he regained his consciousness to reality, a woman in a light blue uniform entered the sitting room, never taking her eyes off her clipboard as she called, ' _Her - Me - Own_ Malfoy?'

Hermione, being who she was, said rather coldly, 'It's _Her-My-Oh-Knee_ , but yes, that's I.'

'Follow me then, _Her-My-Oh-Knee_ ,' mocked the nurse.

Draco shot her a look of disgust, almost opening his mouth to express his anger, but was cut short due to Hermione jabbing her elbow into his side. He hissed quietly in pain, but continued to follow the ever-so-ignorant nurse to the doctors room.

They came to a small room, within it only a large television-like contraption, a metal bed covered with a large, white sheet of paper and two chairs.

The nurse advised Hermione to take her seat on the bed and for Draco to sit in the chair furthest from the Muggle machinery. He listened accordingly, grateful that he wouldn't be within arms reach of the thing.

After a few moments of whispered, every-day conversations, there was a knock at the door.

'Dr. Morton here!' called a high-pitched, overly joyed voice. _She's rather terrible at faking her happiness_ , Draco thought to himself.

'Come in!' Hermione said back.

The women that entered could not have been the women who that voice belonged to. Dr. Morton was no high-pitched, over-joyed woman. She was rather more like a man to him, with large-gorilla arms matching perfectly with her thick, barely-visible neck. Oddly enough, she reminded him of his old friend Crabbe, though the smile on her face did soften her features a bit.

'Right we are then, let's get started. I'll need you to lift your shirt a tad — yes, like that. Then I'll need you to undo your pants —'

'I hardly think that will be necessary,' Draco growled, completely dumbfounded at her crudeness.

The doctor turned to look at him, completely taken aback.

'Draco!' warned Hermione through gritted teeth.

He backed down silently, though now he was keeping a close eye on where the doctor put her elephant-tusk-fingered hands.

Hermione signalled the doctor to continue. Dr. Morton squired clear gel onto Hermione's bare stomach, causing Hermione to hiss then chuckle ('It's cold, that's all!' she reassured Draco upon seeing his face fire-up in anger), then she placed an instrument which looked to Draco like the scanner he'd seen used at Muggle grocery stores. Were they scanning his baby? As the instrument was moved along Hermione's lower stomach — _uterus_ , he remembered — the television screen lit up with a clear image of Hermione's insides.

'Ah, here we are then,' the doctor said triumphantly. 'Here's your baby, Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy.'

Draco felt the inside of his throat go completely dry. He suddenly felt very, very cold, although his armpits and forehead were sweating. He looked at the screen with disbelief, blinking viciously fast as though trying to see whether it had been a trick-of-the-eye. For in front of him, glowing on the screen, was a clear image of a baby curled into a little ball, with its knees almost to its head and its arms at its side, holding its knees.

'You can see here that its in the fetal position. This is very, very good sign,' the doctor went on for a short time after that, yet Draco couldn't hear a word.

He had lifted from his seat now and walked closer to the screen. He let out his index finger, attempting to touch the screen, to see if he could touch the baby itself. However, his finger simply stopped, a cold, hard surface of glass beneath it. He let out a disappointed sigh.

The doctor stared at him, completely at a loss for words.

Hermione whispered something to her like, 'He's not from here,' and 'He's never seen an ultrasound before,' to which the doctor simply nodded in understanding.

Draco took out a Malfoy handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped away the sweat from his forehead. At last, he decided to speak.

'Wow,' breathed Draco. 'Just. . . _Wow_.'

Hermione grinned at him. 'See! I told you it was worth it.'

'Would you like to know the gender?' Dr. Morton asked quietly.

Draco looked at Hermione, his eyes wide. 'We can tell the gender already?'

The doctor nodded.

'Would you like to, love?' he asked Hermione.

Hermione nodded as well, smiling with watery eyes.

'Then, yes! Yes, let's get on with it then!' he grinned.

The doctor asked Hermione to press on her stomach a little bit, to see if the baby would reposition itself, so that they could get a clear look at its genitals. As if he'd drank an entire potion of Felix Felicis, the baby turned its tiny body so that its knees were pressed against her skin, pointing directly to the camera. There, the doctor had a clear shot of its. . . parts.

'Ready?' asked Dr. Morton.

'Yes!' said Draco and Hermione.

'In just a few more months, you'll be blessed with. . .' she smiled at them, 'A baby girl.'

Draco felt the entire room spin, and could have sworn he felt himself collapse at her words. However, when his eyes cleared, he was still rooted at the spot behind Dr. Morton, his face in clear view of the screen.

'A girl!' Hermione cried. 'Oh, a baby girl. Draco, can you believe it?'

'No, no I can't!' he laughed. 'I can't believe it. . . A baby girl. Mer — I mean, _wow_.'

After a few moments of awe, the doctor told Hermione it was time to go. She was handed a cloth to wipe off the now partially dry gel and changed when the doctor left the room. Together, they walked out feeling slightly as though they'd drank an elixir to endure euphoria. The world seemed as though it were brighter than ever before — like the sun had drifted closer to the earth. Even the colours of the world seemed brighter — the trees were a blinding shade of green, and the colours of passing cars gave Draco a headache. But he wasn't in the state to complain. He had nothing in the world to complain about now.

Over the span of two months, Hermione had been shuffling through books trying to find the perfect name for their baby girl. Though Draco had agreed they needn't follow the old Malfoy custom, of naming your child after constellations, Hermione had noted that there was a name that fit both of their desires — a name that was indeed part of the solar system, as well as part of a lovely Muggle play written by one of her favourite playwrights, Shakespeare.

'It's Juliet,' she told him. 'It's a moon of Uranus' _(Draco snorted at this)_ '. . .and the name of a character from one of my favourite plays — Romeo and Juliet!'

'Which play is that again?' he asked curiously.

'The one where the girl is forbidden to marry the boy simply because their parents hate each other,' she smirked. 'Kind of fitting, don't you think?'

'Didn't they die?' he asked.

'Well, yes but that was after that had a viciously passionate love affair!' she persuaded enthusiastically. 'In the end, their parents resolved all conflict, too. A happy ending. . . to some extent.'

Draco laughed, running his hand through her hair, 'I suppose that name is rather pretty. . .'

'So you agree to it, then?' Hermione piped.

He smiled at her warmly. 'Yes, I do.'

Hermione lifted off her chair and squeezed his neck, careful to have her very large, protruding stomach a ways away from him as she did so.

'One month to go,' he declared, hugging the most of her that he could.

'I can't wait,' Hermione groaned. 'This little girl is giving me a good idea of what sport she'd play best in.'

'Oh yeah?' Draco gasped. 'Muggle babies do that, do they? What sport do you reckon?'

'Football,' said Hermione, placing a gripping hand on her bladder. 'I need the bathroom, excuse me.'

Draco was left staring at the bathroom door, a very confused look upon his face.


End file.
